will be half mad
with apprehension, until he knows that I am safe. What a strange
question, indeed." Still, however, she did not doubt the motives of
her companion.

"Suppose we should be unable to find our way to the long-house?" he
continued.

"Oh, don't say such a thing," cried the girl. "It would be terrible.
I should die of misery and fright and loneliness in this awful jungle.
Surely you can find your way to the river--it was but a short march
through the jungle from where we landed to the spot at which you took
me away from that fearful Malay."

The girl's words cast a cloud over Bulan's hopes. The future looked
less roseate with the knowledge that she would be unhappy in the life
that he had been mapping for them. He was silent--thinking. In his
breast a riot of conflicting emotions were waging the first great
battle which was to point the trend of the man's character--would the
selfish and the base prevail, or would the noble?

With the thought of losing her his desire for her companionship became
almost a mania. To return her to her father and von Horn would be to
lose her--of that there could be no doubt, for they would not leave her
long in ignorance of his origin. Then, in addition to being deprived
of her forever, he must suffer the galling mortification of her scorn.

It was a great deal to ask of a fledgling morality that was yet
scarcely cognizant of its untried wings; but even as the man wavered
between right and wrong there crept into his mind the one great and
burning question of his life--had he a soul? And he knew that upon his
decision of the fate of Virginia Maxon rested to some extent the true
answer to that question, for, unconsciously, he had worked out his own
crude soul hypothesis which imparted to this invisible entity the power
to direct his actions only for good. Therefore he reasoned that
wickedness presupposed a small and worthless soul, or the entire lack
of one.

That she would hate a soulless creature he accepted as a foregone
conclusion. He desired her respect, and that fact helped him to his
final decision, but the thing that decided him was born of the truly
chivalrous nature he possessed--he wanted Virginia Maxon to be happy;
it mattered not at what cost to him.

The girl had been watching him closely as he stood silently thinking
after her last words. She did not know the struggle that the calm face
hid; yet she felt that the dragging moments were big with t